305. The Theory of Downhills for Strength and Speed, AM v. PM Training Study, Bicarb Poisoning on Mt. Everest, and Moon Shots!

Summary

Some Work, All Play Podcast – Episode 305 Detailed Summary

Main Theme:
This episode covers a freewheeling mix of science, running, personal life, and pop culture, as always, with a central emphasis on training adaptations from downhills, the impact of training time of day, and finding joy in unpredictability. Hosts David and Megan Roche lace the conversation with humor, honesty about their own lives as athletes/coaches/parents, and tangents ranging from cycling robots to Mount Everest evacuation schemes.

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1. Opening Banter & Theme Setting

00:01 – 04:37

• David and Megan start with playful “beef” about David listening to Noah Kahan’s "sad boy music," despite prior mockery (which he sheepishly owns up to).
• Both discuss how music and little rituals anchor them emotionally during tough seasons, especially for long-term injuries or health setbacks.
• This segues into the episode’s topics—running science, training approaches, and snippets of their real lives.

Notable Quotes:

• "If you listen to as much Noah Kahan as I have in the last week, you probably should get a voucher for therapy." – David (01:00)
• “The frivolous things are the important things…those things are what ends up making a life and a personality.” – David (06:56)

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2. Joy, Motivation & Coping with Uncertainty

05:00 – 09:46

• Megan shares her recent heart “blips,” uncertainty about racing, and the importance of finding joy in small, non-training experiences (e.g., Artemis II space launch, kids’ sandboxes).
• They discuss anchoring identity and happiness in the process (not outcome) and seeing athletic life as a long, nonlinear journey.

Notable Quotes:

• “I realized the only way to push back against [uncertainty] is to find joy in the random little things that are NOT training, because those are the constant.” – Megan (06:56)
• “You’re the toughest motherfucker I’ve ever met...sometimes that toughness can be difficult.” – David (09:33)

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3. Training Experimentation: Zwift & The Indoor Cycling Shift

09:46 – 13:37

• David discusses finding “Constance”—a Zwift pace bot—as a new training partner, helping bring social vibes and structure to long indoor rides.
• Listener feedback is highlighted: Zwift has enabled safer, more enjoyable cycling for people who’ve left the road after accidents.
• They joke about robot attachment and how adaptation is okay—"reframing love for something in the name of mental health."

Notable Quotes:

• “Thanks to you guys, I purchased a Zwift ride and I'm having so much fun…the pain cave feels almost exactly [like] riding outdoors.” – Listener message (11:25)
• “Zwift may save lives, but it ruined marriages...” – David (12:56)

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4. Segment Promo & Sponsor Shout-Outs

14:03 – 16:45
[Ad/Promo segments skipped except for context around nutrition discussions]

• Megan and David discuss experience and effectiveness of different forms of creatine.
• Gentle sleep aids (Dream Shot) and fueling philosophies are touched on, emphasizing listening to your own body’s response.

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5. New Study Deep Dive: AM vs. PM Training in Mice

17:02 – 24:51

• Study Overview: Female mice trained either in the morning or afternoon, with sponges behind the treadmill for exhaustion tests (“Rat News”).
• Morning mice improved performance by 132% compared to 45% for afternoon mice, despite doing LESS work.
• The mechanism is tied to markers of mitochondrial quality, not just content.
• Discussion highlights significant methodological limitations (genetic homogeneity, single-sex group, gifting of mice from a circadian rhythm researcher).

Notable Quotes:

• “Basically, the morning mice were lazy but got rewarded for it.” – David (22:15)
• “Routine might matter. Maybe that's the biggest conclusion…the regularity of sleep is what matters.”  – David (23:39)

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6. Training Science: The Theory of Downhills for Strength and Speed

24:51 – 43:14

Speed Downhills

• Slight downhills (1% grade) boost turnover, biomechanical output, and running economy—especially helpful at altitude or for athletes who struggle with flat-ground speed.
• They promote neuromuscular development and can simulate treadmill benefits outdoors.

Memorable Moment:

• Megan and David sing “Wrecking Ball” lyrics and laugh about “carrying tension through the body.”

Strength Downhills

• “Just say no to rhabdo” workouts: Repeated pounding on steep downhills induce muscle damage, triggering adaptations (repeated bout effect).
• Benefits are central and peripheral—stronger musculature, improved running economy, and better central fatigue resistance, applicable even for purely flat races.
• Cautions: Serious soreness, risk of rhabdo; adaptation timing matters by gender and muscle fiber type.

Notable Quotes:

• “Downhills lead to fatigue resistance and we don't know why—but it is so fucking cool.” – David (36:35)
• “Women demonstrate quicker return to baseline levels…females are often sore for shorter periods of time.” – Megan (37:21)
• “If you can develop muscular resilience through downhills, maybe you don’t need to run as much…might be better for health and joy.” – David (42:04)

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7. Side Tangent: Porn, Robots, and Accidental Comedy

43:14 – 45:10

• Brief, humorous tangent about neither host having watched pornography together, joking about AI/robot character names.
• Sets the tone for their open, silly style mingled with running science.

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8. Mount Everest Bicarb Poisoning Scandal

45:10 – 49:35

• Discussing news where Everest guides faked illnesses for helicopter evacuations by dosing clients’ food with baking powder (sodium bicarb)—essentially giving them “bicarb cholera.”
• Science sidebar on the pros and cons of sodium bicarbonate as a performance enhancer, especially at altitude.
• Conversation ends with satirical ideas for product sponsorship.

Notable Quotes:

• “They're giving them bicarb cholera. We're gonna need an ICD code for that now.” – Megan (46:21)

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9. On Scientific Careers, Inclusion, and the “Mia Culpa” Paper

49:45 – 56:43

• A researcher’s self-analysis: After 50 years, he reviewed his studies for female inclusion and authorship; results show women are still underrepresented (~15% participants, ~23% authors).
• Megan and David debate the appropriateness of a male-centered “herstory” reflection—ultimately agreeing that shouting inclusion is better than silence or perfectionism.
• Larger encouragement for all voices—especially from groups seeking inclusion.

Notable Quotes:

• "The voice doesn't have to be perfect. It's better to put your voice out there than to try to be perfect and have fear surrounding it." – Megan (56:43)

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10. Q&A Highlights

59:00 – End

Q1: Race Day as Celebration—How to Shift Mindset?

• Listener describes overcoming injury/self-doubt to enjoy racing as a celebration, not a test.
• David and Megan reflect on how this “epiphany” often needs to be re-learned after big wins or setbacks.
• The importance of constant re-framing, especially in lifelong athleticism and inevitable “fading” of intensity/achievement as time goes on.

Q2: Elevated Liver Enzymes after Hard Training—Should I Worry?

• AST and ALT slightly elevated after a double workout and lifting; Megan reassures that numbers are reasonable post-exercise, but recommends rest-day bloodwork to avoid false positives.
• Discusses how adaptation and recovery change with age/life-stress, and how the “fueling edge” is thinner for older or more stressed individuals.
• Touch on the illusion of invincibility among high-level athletes with immense stress tolerance—advising most listeners to err on the side of more fueling.

Q3: Is It Okay to Jump In Untrained for a Half Marathon?

• Yes—if you are healthy, sub-ultra events are safe learning opportunities. Minimum viable fitness (10-mile long run, a few 80-minute runs) is enough.

Q4: Moldy Water Bottles—How Clean Is Clean Enough?

• Megan’s hack: Wash with bottle brushes, store bottles in the freezer to delay mold growth.
• David jokes about soap aversion due to childhood trauma.

Listener Corner:

• Study on the “Ultimate SWAP Playlist” boosting vibes and results during ultra—leads into playful debate about curating new playlists (“If you have a song that suddenly sucks, take it out!”).
• Joint laughter and plans for collaborative music curation.

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11. Notable Quotes and Running Jokes

• “It's music for people with long-term plantar fasciitis like I have.” – David (01:49)
• “You need some astronaut baseball cards.” – David (08:40)
• “Zwift might save lives, but it ruined marriages…” – David (12:56)
• “The frivolous things are the important things…those things are what ends up making a life.” – David (06:56)
• “Downhills come with great power, but they also come with great responsibility.” – David (26:23)
• "Downhills lead to fatigue resistance—and we don't know why—but it is so fucking cool." – David (36:35)
• “I had a cardiologist who was like, maybe you should retire and become a coach now. Joke’s on you, bro.” – Megan (64:53)

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12. Tone and Takeaways

• The episode is candid, nerdy, irreverent, supportive, and at times delightfully awkward (“throat taint” gags, open talk about aging and sex, literal beef bells).
• Key messages: Embrace the process, adapt joyfully as your circumstances (and bodies) change, use science but don’t ignore real emotions, and let yourself be drawn toward little pleasures (music, robots, space launches) when big goals are uncertain.

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TIMESTAMPS FOR KEY SEGMENTS

• Opening banter, Noah Kahan, joy in little things: 00:01 – 09:46
• Zwift robot, training adaptation indoors: 09:46 – 13:37
• Creatine/gels/sleep nutrition sidebars: 14:03 – 16:45
• AM vs PM mouse study: 17:02 – 24:51
• Downhill training (for speed and strength): 24:51 – 43:14
• Mount Everest bicarb scandal: 45:10 – 49:35
• Study inclusion and “Mia Culpa” reflection: 49:45 – 56:43
• Q&A: racing mindset, bloodwork, jumping into events: 59:00 – End

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Recommended for Listeners Who Enjoy:

• Blending hard science (physiology, adaptation) with real-life coaching and self-deprecating humor
• Hearing elite coaches discuss their own uncertainty and adaptation (re: injury, training, motivation)
• Tangents into music, pop culture, and odd peer-reviewed papers
• Open, goofy, and deeply supportive takes on finding joy in both the messy and the mundane

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For Further Info

• Ultimate SWAP Playlist: Spotify (21 hours of running music)
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/swap
• Coaching resources and articles: SWAP Patreon and Instagram

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A loving, science-backed, and laughter-filled episode about why you don’t have to have it all figured out to have a joyful, successful life in running and beyond.

Transcript

[A]

Woohoo.

[B]

Welcome to the Some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy with you today.

[A]

Happy Tuesday.

[B]

It's Tuesday.

[A]

And David, I have a beef with you on this Tuesday.

[B]

A beef with me on the podcast.

[A]

I do. To start the podcast.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What could this possibly be?

[A]

It refers to your Strava title on Sunday.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

It was the lyrics of a Noah Kahan song, which.

[B]

Hell yeah, it was. Yeah.

[A]

The Great Divide. A great song. Except for the fact that you've been telling me for years that Noah Kahan is sad boy music. Oh, and that I should turn it off.

[B]

Prosecutor inadmissible evidence. I said that. That a couple times in the car when the vibe was different and then

[A]

you turned the song off and then

[B]

I turned it to something that had a different vibe. It's not that I don't like him. I loved his first album. There's a number of his songs on the swap playlist over time. But yes, I have perhaps said it was sad boy music. And I realize I'm now implicating myself on the stand. Your beef. Your beef may be correct.

[A]

And you've been listening to it on repeat on your runs, on your rides. And I have a serious question for you. Are you okay, bro?

[B]

All right, that's fair. If you listen to as much Noah Khan as I have in the last week, you probably should get a voucher for therapy. But thankfully I am doing therapy, so we can talk about this. So, the Great Divide by Nokahan new single. For some reason, this song has resonated with my brain on a deep level. I don't know exactly what I'm seeing there, but I find myself scream singing it while I train. And like, while I have said sad boy, I don't mean that in a disparaging way. Like, that is a vibe that can be so productive. And it's a lot of different emotions that are included within that.

[A]

And.

[B]

And for me right now, for some reason, I'm vibing, Megan. I'm vibing. And so yes, your beef is coming from a real place.

[A]

The lyrics are so good. I love Noah Kahn. I've actually always loved Noah Kahan. In fact, I feel like I've gone down rabbit holes before where I spent like, runs and rides listening to him. Is your body okay?

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Yeah. Your foot mood.

[B]

See, that's a fair point in that. It's not that it's sad boy music. It's music for people with long term plantar fasciitis like I have.

[A]

That's so true.

[B]

So true.

[A]

Maybe we should send Noah Kahan, like a night splint.

[B]

A night splint. Just in case.

[A]

Just in case.

[B]

That's where it's from. Yeah. He's so brilliant. I followed him on social media and realized how funny he is too. And I don't know, I think I was a little bit resistant at some level to his bangers. Like his sad boy bangers on his first album are great.

[A]

Actually, to be fair though, would we call those bangers?

[B]

Oh, six season dude. I would go to spring break. I would do a keg stand to stick season.

[A]

So you go to Cabo to stick season.

[B]

Oh, you put it on Maine. Yeah, that's the best. I haven't really listened to Maine, but I've heard if you're into him a lot, that's the song you're into. I've even gotten to the point that my social media algorithm are Noah Kahan fan club type posts.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. That's incredible.

[B]

So I'm going deep, Megan. All because of the Great Divide, which might be my most played song of the year. So everyone go listen to it. Listen to it enough that you can screen sing with it and you'll see what happens to me where your ego gets subverted and you become something else. You become a Noah, and it comes out of your soul and then expresses itself in bike watts.

[A]

I went to the grocery store the other night at like 7pm to get milk, and you sent me a text message and you're like, megan, just drive around for five minutes. We were up in the mountains, and so the grocery store, grocery store is like 30 seconds away, which is actually too short. I want like a five minute drive.

[B]

Especially when there's no kids.

[A]

I'm like, I want to enjoy my five minutes in the car. And so I drove around the town of Nederland scream singing to boom. You felt it and it was quite effective.

[B]

You felt it, right?

[A]

I felt it.

[B]

Okay. Okay. That should get rid of the beef because I gave you the joy of driving while listening to the Great Divide. Because it is transcendent.

[A]

It is transcendent. Can I still ring the beef bell, though?

[B]

Ring the beef bell.

[A]

I feel like we've had a beef. We should ring a beef bell.

[B]

Okay. Ring it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Funny bell. But my beef with you is that that is a weird bell.

[A]

So bing.

[B]

That's more of an appropriate one.

[A]

That's a. That's a better beef.

[B]

Okay, we have the best episode for you. We're going to start by talking about literal moonshots, then a quick Thing on zwift biking. A study on AM versus PM training featuring mice.

[A]

This is Rat News, our segment of Rat News. Did you read the methodology on the

[B]

study I did on this one?

[A]

I happen to love it because they did time to exhaustion tests on mice which I honestly didn't know you could do on a treadmill. Yeah, a mouse treadmill. And they put sponges behind the treadmill because the mice were just becoming exhausted and sliding off.

[B]

We need that for our pain cave.

[A]

We really do. We need some sponges back.

[B]

Absolutely. Then a big training discussion on using downhills for speed development. Then Mount Everest Bicarb news.

[A]

We should ring the beef bell on this one.

[B]

That's a sad bell.

[A]

Actually run the uncooked chicken bell, sadly.

[B]

Then a career retrospective article. The theory of fatigue resistant snacks and a Q and A on AI coaching races, liver enzymes, leveling up training and lots more.

[A]

Okay, that's a lot of Q and A. Do you think we're gonna get there?

[B]

We are, Megan. You believe we're gonna go so fast after our four minutes of talking about Noah Khan. But it's important because those four minutes exemplify my entire personality right now. I have a feeling that I'm gonna keep coming back to the Great Divide and no con throughout this entire episode. And then in like three years, everyone's gonna be like, what the fuck was going on with you, bro?

[A]

No, I feel like in three years everyone's gonna be like the Great Divide.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. That was our song of 2026.

[B]

So first thing here is your entire personality. I'm a Noah. Dude, you are a space girl.

[A]

I'm an Artemis too, girl. We should put it up to the vote, which is cooler.

[B]

Oh, no, no, no, no. You do not put Noah against space. Megan, these are my two favorite things. If you have to choose between Noah and space, I'm just leaving this planet.

[A]

We should just send Noah to space. Oh, he'd be a great astronaut.

[B]

Yes, he would be a good ambassador to the aliens.

[A]

He really would be. But I've been hyped on Artemis too. I feel like it was fun to watch NASA tv. We wore spacesuits to the Project Hail Mary showing. And as I was watching NASA tv, there's just a bunch of five year olds wearing the same spacesuits that we wore.

[B]

Basically our vibe. Yeah, and what I loved about Artemis too is just what can happen when humans come together for a long term goal. Like Project Hail Mary has a similar vibe, both the book and the movie. And seeing that in Space launches, which have to be these massive undertakings over many years across multiple administrations and all the terrible bullshit that's happening in the world right now that can make you feel so down and depressed. And I mean, honestly, we all should be kind of down and depressed about that. But you know, in that context, being able to have hope in this space launch was so cool. And maybe most of all for me is the hope in seeing you vibe with it so much. You texted me like a hundred times about various things with the space launch. I'm like, megan, are you just watching this with popcorn during workday?

[A]

I was just, I had it on the background and so I had like the audio version as I was working and I was like, just tell me facts about things. But I feel like for me, like, you know, we're joking about you being a sad boy. And I feel like at times I've been a bit of a sad girl in the sense of, like, I've just had this uncertainty about my heart. Like, I've had a few heart blips here where like the chest pain comes back a little bit and then it derails my ability to train. And I feel like I'm heading into each training week with this just uncertain nature of how the week is going to go. And I realized the only way to push back against that is to find joy in the random little things that are not training. Because it's like, that's a constant. And so I'm like, Artemis too. Step up. This is going to be my joy.

[B]

Yeah, we talk about that a lot. That like, the frivolous things are the important things. And it's really hard to see that in life, especially when you're busy. But those things are what ends up making a life and a personality and how hard it is to grasp onto. And I think one of the complications with running is that running or athletics can become these huge narratives so that it loses its frivolity. And overall, like, it's just part of the nature of long term goals. And anchoring into those things is so challenging. So, like, how are you dealing with, with the loss of some of those long term narratives? I mean, we're coming up on Canyons 100k. That was the race you were supposed to do. How's it gonna feel hitting that? Like, how do you feel about that journey?

[A]

Well, I think in some ways it's easy. Easier in the sense that it feels so obvious that I should not be launching my body down the canyons. Like, I'm just not ready for that. Like, it's taking my body a little bit longer to come back in terms of some of these heart blips. And I think I'm just trying to avoid getting like, I think my brain wants to have a narrative at all times. But, like, I'm training for this race, I'm training for this season, and I've tried to just dismantle those narrat and be like, I'm going to find joy in the day to day process of training. And like, I'm fortunate. I love training.

[B]

You love it more than anyone I've ever seen. Like, truly, truly every single day you are the happiest person in the world while you're doing the thing.

[A]

And I feel like, thus I don't need the long term narratives as this like motivational thing to get out the door. Like, I just like getting out the door. And so I've tried to like dismantle some of those long term narratives because I just don't know, like, every time I've set myself up recently for a long term narrative, it just hasn't happened. And so I've just been trying to find one frivolous thing each day that I'm like, this is my joy point. So this weekend it was building a massive mountain sandbox for the boys or doing an Easter egg hunt in Sunday. And it's like trying to turn some of my uncertainty in running into those frivolous joys.

[B]

Well, I like your worship of astronauts.

[A]

I need some astronaut baseball cards.

[B]

Yeah, you do. You're really into them. You need some astronaut locks of hair. No, but I love and respect it so much and I can't wait for us to pursue those frivolous things and maybe we can bring them to the podcast and talk more about some of the ways that we're trying to find joy in this crazy life. And, you know, especially because this heart stuff, it's. It ain't going away.

[A]

Yeah. And I think that's what I've come to realize is like, I've always just pushed back against. I'm like, I'm good, I'm fine. I'm just gonna get back to training. And I am getting back to training, but I think there's that uncertainty piece that just lies waiting for me. And so I'm like, I'm gonna do all the things, like, I don't want to stop living to try to like live out this running narrative that may or may not happen. And so it's like, there's a Mary Oliver documentary in Boulder and I'm like, I want to go see that.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

There's just like, so many different things I want to do and trying to just like, you know, hold space for both of those. Of the joy of training and doing all these fun things.

[B]

Well, you're the toughest motherfucker I've ever met. And I think sometimes that toughness can be difficult. Right. And I love you so much. And so I have some bad news, some bad news that I'm uncomfortable to share with you after that beautiful reflection.

[A]

You just had better not be about Artemis 2 or Noah Khan.

[B]

No, Artemis is good. Noah is great. But I've been spending a lot of time with this girl named Constance.

[A]

Oh, on Zwift? Oh, no, on Zwift, it's the pay spot.

[B]

I spend so much time with Constance. This is a little bit of a training. Training discussion. So on Zwift, there are all of these different pace spots that range from very, very low power to quite high power. And I think for people out there that are just like, well, what do I do when I go ride? If you can find the P spot that corresponds to your Z2, you don't have to look at power. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to be lonely in Zwift world and feel just like, what do I even do today? Or am I going to go up this mountain? Or whatever. You can just go ride with those bots. And I've been doing that two times per week for two or two and a half hours at a time. And I think it's been fantastic for my fitness. It just is like a guaranteed Z2 workout that I can then do accelerations off of or play. And also it makes that world feel more social.

[A]

And.

[B]

And I've been just vibing so much with indoor riding with this new training experiment of doing a little bit less running, a lot less running. Especially in terms of days, like four days per week and a lot more riding. And so it's a really cool opportunity. And it's all because I'm staring at constant for many hours a week.

[A]

Okay, so you're talking about getting social.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that you're spending time with Constance, the beautifully tainted robot. She's red in Zwift in a fake world.

[B]

Fake world. I mean, maybe all worlds are fake. Megan, have you read about simulation theory?

[A]

I mean, that kind of is my dream social environment. It's just living in a simulation theory.

[B]

Yeah. But, like, I do get quite attached to her. Yesterday, I think I spent 90 minutes consecutively where it was just her and I, because nobody else was on this group ride.

[A]

Actually, it's true. You put out such high watts per kilogram that oftentimes the pace group falls away.

[B]

Well, thank you.

[A]

And it's just I see, I come in, I walk in like, you know, after my run and I see you just hanging out. It's just you and Constance.

[B]

Yeah. I'm getting an anatomy lesson on this robot, so you should be a little worried is all I'm saying. But a serious reflection comes from a listener who commented on an article I wrote on Patreon, which is theoretically the first in maybe a 50 part installment of a reflection on like the 18 months after I was in a bike accident. And it talks a little bit about the accident, you know, the self aware, joking nature of writing that I always enjoy. And here is what they wrote. You've opined about your accident and how it shifted your perspective on outdoor writing and mortality a couple of times on the pod and now here. I want to thank you and Megan for telling me it's okay to reframe your love for something in the name of mental health. Thanks to you guys, I purchased a Zwift ride and I'm having so much fun on it. The pain cave feels almost exactly what I remember from riding outdoors. It's crazy. I gave up road biking for running three years ago and getting into many is this it? Moments with careless drivers and also seeing multiple friends in my local scene get injured. Thanks for reminding me that I can love cycling in a different way and allowing myself to experience the joy of two wheels all over again.

[A]

That's beautiful. I actually had the reflection this morning while I was on Zwift that like, I wonder how many lives Zwift has saved over time. Just in the sense of like having something really fun indoors that gets riders off the road. It's a great option.

[B]

And outdoor riding is amazing. You get so much joy from it. I'm never going to say you should ride indoors.

[A]

Actually, the joy that you feel staring at Constance's taint is how I feel riding solo on Greville.

[B]

Yeah, Zwift might save lives, but it ruined marriages. That's all I'm saying. No, I mean, it's beautiful, right? But I felt pressure after the accident to get back out there. I tried to complete the ride like a month later.

[A]

I feel like it was almost like proving a point.

[B]

Proving a point for sure. And I, you know, as soon as I was able to write emails again through dictation software, I was contacting Trek to try to get A new bike. And I just felt the pressure to be outdoors. And I've realized over time that actually indoors riding with that sexy fucking robot, that's my shit right now. And maybe, you know, maybe it'll change. I'd still want a joyride with you. Um, but cross training is an amazing option, and we just have so many more, like, opportunities now.

[A]

Well, I wonder if it would be different if you found a gravel bike that you loved.

[B]

I do have a gravel bike. I love. The Canyon's really good.

[A]

I know, but I feel like you don't love it. Love it the way that I love Cookie Monster. The gravel bike. Like, does the bike have a name?

[B]

Megan, I know that the theme of this episode is Noah Kahan and taints, but like, gravel biking, man, it just gets up in there. It is, like, rough on the taint.

[A]

I feel like you adapt in time.

[B]

The perineum adapt.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, do you have any mouse

[B]

studies on perineum adaptation?

[A]

Yeah, put some sponges down there.

[B]

Okay, perfect. Okay, let's get on to that mouse study. But before we do that, quick promo for the feed. Go to the feed dot com. Swap swap. If you are a first time orderer, you get 40% off. And if you're a returning customer, $10 back for every $100 spent. Best deal on the market.

[A]

It's been so fun to have the feed and just browse the website and be like, what can I find? And for me, I found the Feed Lab creatine this week, which is a great cost effective option. I actually typically do pill form of creatine and I just have this weird feeling that it's not working.

[B]

It doesn't work. I don't think. I mean, I think.

[A]

Why do you think that? Why do I think that?

[B]

Why do I think? I don't know.

[A]

Should I be more jacked? Is this like.

[B]

Should you be more jacked?

[A]

I'm like, is this some kind of, like, implicit bias that we have that my creatine pills are not working?

[B]

You are jacked, Meghan. Never, ever, ever insult your swolitude. But yeah, I mean, something about the pills you were taking, I'm just. It doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel like it's enough powder to me.

[A]

Yeah, I'm just like, I feel like this is not doing it. So I want to get back to the powder form. And I've had some, like, GI issues with the powder form, which is how I ended up in pills. But now I'm going to try the feed lab.

[B]

The Feed Lab Creatine have heard amazing things from athletes taking it. Everybody's different. I don't personally take creatine and not that many male athletes I coach do. Many of the female athletes do and almost all the aging athletes do, or vegetarian athletes. So, you know, your experience may vary. Pay attention to how you feel, but have seen transformative things with the Feed Lab creatine. The other thing I want to promote is dream shot, which could help sleep. It's gentle, no melatonin. And here's a message from a pro athlete on this topic. Feeling great. I tried dream shot last night and I slept like a rock. It was pretty cool.

[A]

Haha. Well, you're telling me about this message and I was like, cool, bro. That's like, yeah, Megan.

[B]

Megan actually said, david, do we need to promote that? You don't personally take it right now. Like I go in waves with it. And I was like, megan, I hear this type of message from so many people and I told you who sent

[A]

the message and I was like, okay, yeah, yeah, include the message. If this athlete likes it, then dream shot's good.

[B]

Yeah. And this is the type of thing like you just gentle if you can't stay asleep especially it can be helpful. And tons of athletes have taken it before, like Olympic level marathons, so you know it can improve performance. So try that. And then final thing actually is on the feeds homepage right now, there's a link to my six favorite gels and you get a $20 back for every $100 spent credit on those gels. So here's the perfect time to stock up for spring because you get the best gels at the cheapest price. Like it'll make everything 20% off. This stuff rocks.

[A]

I think actually in that like promo of of for those gels, they have you running at mile 90 of J. Did you see that? Yeah, it was a video clip and I was like, I feel like they need to specify somewhere that this running form is mile 90 of a race.

[B]

Well, they also need to specify that that's me going through torn plantar. Not very good. You know what I needed back then?

[A]

You need to put a cover of Noah Kahan on that.

[B]

Yeah, I needed the great divide that would have gotten me through my sad boy miles.

[A]

Actually, I feel like stick season would be more accurate for that stick season

[B]

because I looked like I was running on sticks. I see how you're insulting me here. You know, Constance would never do that. Constance just periodically has a little text bubble that appears beside her and says make sure you're fueling, make sure you're hydrating. That's why I like Constance.

[A]

This is the social stimulation to your heart.

[B]

Yes. So go to the feed.com swap. All right, first thing here is a quick study. We were actually looking for a study last second because the exercise physiology world hasn't been popping off as much as I'd expect earlier. And so I was going through all the journals and I always like to check Journal of Applied Physiology because Journal of Applied Physiology has the best figures. They have one summary figure for each paper. And every single time I look at a figure and I'm like, cool. I now get it.

[A]

Actually, this is where we need a YouTube so we can pull up the figure from this paper of just the happy looking mice, the happiest mice you've ever seen, about to do the time no exhaustion test and get launched off the back of their treadmills.

[B]

Little AI mice on little AI treadmills looking quite joyous. And so this is a pretty simple study design. It's called morning endurance training. Induces superior performance adaptations compared with afternoon training in mice. So it is in the title, which is a good thing in rat news.

[A]

And they had some wild methodology in terms of like how they were conducting a study and even the mice that they used.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Did you see a quote from the paper that these mice were bred in house from mice originally received as a gift from Dr. Joseph Takahashi?

[B]

Yeah. I wonder if Joseph Takahashi has really just pumped about his inclusion in this paper. I don't know exactly why it's necessary to say that they are a gift from this doctor. Maybe this is a common protocol.

[A]

Actually, it's a limitation of the study, really. I feel like they got the gift and they're like, oh, shit, we got to do something with this gift. But now we're obligated because it's actually like an inbred strain of mice which if you think about it, that impacts like genetic diversity and could potentially impact the results. So maybe these mice from Dr. Joseph Takahashi, who's a circadian rhythm researcher.

[B]

I love that you looked it up.

[A]

I did. I was like, tell me about Dr. Joseph Takahashi.

[B]

This is like when someone gives you a gift that about you're talking just like, fuck, I can't re gift this.

[A]

What am I supposed to do with this? And you put it in the study and then you're like, this has major limitations.

[B]

I like that you took this a step further. I greatly appreciate it. So this was just involving female mice and the reason female mice were Selected is that they are known to run more than their male counterparts. Not something I was aware of. Very, very cool. I think you see that across nature in a lot of different contexts where the women are the badasses and the guys just kind of chill.

[A]

Isn't that kind of cool? It's actually another study limitation though is like, what's the generalizability? It's like very rare to go from like female research to be like, how do we apply this to male athletes? And I'm like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[B]

So lots of limitations on the study. And this was the training protocol. They did five times per week training for six weeks at 70% of their max capacity. And their max capacity was determined via the sponge method, apparently.

[A]

Okay, I actually have to read this direct quote from the paper on the sponge method. Sponges were placed at the back of the treadmill to reduce the risk of injury. Mice were deemed exhausted when they remained in contact with a sponge for greater than 10 seconds and could not be encouraged to continue by several air puffs from a compressed air container.

[B]

Oh, my God. So they're giving them like performance enhancing air. Wow.

[A]

Like resuscitating these mice and then being like, get back on the treadmill. Fuck.

[B]

AM versus PM training. This is a new way to motivate athletes.

[A]

It's, yeah, kind of wild.

[B]

This is all about training protocol. Um, and then endurance performance was assessed at baseline, week three and week six of the intervention. So at baseline, the afternoon mice performed significantly better. They absolutely whooped the morning mice's mis. The meese ass. It was really, really bad.

[A]

The me's ass got whoops. And this is actually relevant too, because if you think about the morning cohort, they have more room to improve their baseline. And so that's relevant when we think about the findings of the study.

[B]

Yeah. And the causes for that could be twofold. So one, it could be that in mice, it's like it is in humans, where at baseline afternoon training might be better performance, which has led some people in humans to conclude that you should train in the afternoon. Be like, oh, well, maybe performance at baseline is a little bit better. So that could be one explanation.

[A]

Do you see that within yourself? Like, I find that with my, like, if I have to put out raw bike numbers, I feel like I'm actually a lot better at like noon or 2:00pm compared to anywhere from like 5:00am

[B]

to 8:00am oh, no, no, no. I'm an AM guy. But it's hard because you do so much like intervention over time that you can't really tease it apart, especially because every human is an individual. And that also gets back to the study. Every mouse is an individual. So you can't tell if that's what you're seeing across this cohort or just that the mice that were selected for the afternoon group are better athlete mice for whatever reason, though that is less likely than in humans.

[A]

They were Dr. Joseph Takahashi's prodigies.

[B]

Oh, yes.

[A]

Yes, they were his good group.

[B]

Dude, Coach Joseph, you don't fuck around with those gift mice. He's only given the usain bolts of mice. So then after training, the morning mice improved by more, by 132% versus just 45% in the PM group. And then here's a quote from the study that explains some of it. In skeletal muscle, the morning mice were associated with increased cytochrome of, et cetera, et cetera, cucks for protein expression, citrate synthase activity in shifts in myosin heavy chain, in isoform expression without changes in mitochondrial content. So that is just a large way of saying that they're showing much greater increases in adaptation markers for whatever reason.

[A]

And that is largely due to mitochondrial quality as opposed to content, which matters in the long term. And so what they concluded was that morning training showed superior performance adaptations despite even doing lower workloads in the morning.

[B]

So the morning mice were voluntarily doing less work in their 70% of exhaustion training, which is also interesting that there's less volitional work in that group. Basically, the morning mice were lazy, but got rewarded for it.

[A]

Yeah, actually I was have. I was reading the study and I was thinking about we should just give mice high carb fueling and see what happens. Yeah, just give mice like 200 grams of carbs an hour and be like, have at it, have at it.

[B]

So, you know, can you draw any conclusions from this? Well, it's cool. Mice news. I like rat news. But as always, rat news might not necessarily be like correlating with human type interventions. I mean, we've cured many cancers in rats and non humans, and I think training is even less likely to be direct. But this is the type of thing that might be relevant overall in that time of day of training might impact things like adaptation in ways that are individual specific rather than population wide. And so pay attention to that. Like, you know, I think that some routine matters. Maybe that's the biggest conclusion of all for me is there was a study that came out just recently on sleep. And you know, there's all these studies that are like, how much does sleep impact Longevity and health and whatever. And the study found that it's actually not, like, quality of sleep, like length of sleep. It's largely when you start sleeping, like, if that number varies a ton, like, you're going to sleep at 8pm one night and then 1pm the other night. It's like regularity of sleep is what matters. And so I think some rhythm might matter, but when exactly you do it, I don't know.

[A]

And I feel like as a coach, too, I tend to see that morning athletes are just more consistent in the sense that, like, less disturbance happens in the morning. Like, sometimes I feel like by the time you get to 5:00pm, it's like, you know, work has run late, the kids need you for something, like, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's just like the day starts to build up and it's just simply hard to get it in.

[B]

Yeah. So hard to get it in.

[A]

Mice.

[B]

What's going on here? And also do not want to talk about what happened to the mice. Oh, always so sad, but very interesting. Always. Like exercise physiology studies that get to these types of questions. And the Journal of Applied Physiology, that mouse graphic that'll live in my heart forever.

[A]

Yeah. I feel like journals have been going hard on graphics recently, and it's kind of fun, actually. And I feel like this is a particularly good one. I Wish we had YouTube. We could pop it up.

[B]

Yeah, well, I'll put it on Patreon and I don't know, I think it's also one of those places AI can be quite useful.

[A]

That's true. Yeah.

[B]

They could probably really develop these. Well, though, we'll get it to it in the AI and coaching discussion and questions. I am just like, I am getting AI messages now, like, crazy from people, and I respect it. Like, it's a good way to organize thoughts, perhaps. But for some reason, I just have trouble responding in a really detailed way. And I don't know why exactly that is. Maybe I'm just like an old Luddite at this point. But we'll talk more about it later.

[A]

How do you know it's an AI message?

[B]

Often they'll tell me. Oh, they'll say, use AI to organize these thoughts. And then it's like some long message. I'm like, cool. But like, like, AI did that. It's kind of like people that say, I'm building in quad code, and they're not building. Claude Code's building, which I get. Like, it's, you know.

[A]

Oh, Claude Code has built some really cool things.

[B]

It's built really cool Things.

[A]

But like actually I saw a New York Times article about a company that Claude code built and I was like, damn.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That article I also read about. Was it the one on drug, like giving drugs to people?

[A]

No.

[B]

Oh no. Well, it shows how much is getting built. Okay, next discussion is on downhills and how we use them for speed development. So this is a broader training discussion where I wanted to talk about it because this is fresh in my brain because last week I did the just say no to rabdo workout. My first one of the year where I ran up and down an extremely steep trail ranger trail here in Boulder several times with the intent express goal of getting really fucking sore.

[A]

6,000 total feet of vert director Cody was chasing you. He was actually quite fast. How is he keeping up? You were running very fast down these downhills and he's carrying a camera and filming.

[B]

He's the best athlete in the world. I don't how he does it. I can't wait to see some of the footage. I mean, I don't know how it could ever be even stable even with a stabilizer because we were rocking and rolling on 20% grade. But yeah, so he came out there and filmed. And we're going to have a whole video on these just say notorabdo workouts in some of the downhill principles. But as we sit here Monday recording. Let me see and put on my like, still sore. And I did this on Thursday.

[A]

You've been hobbling around.

[B]

I've been hobbling so bad, Megan. So that's a big disclaimer on this. Downhills come with great power, but they also come with great responsibility.

[A]

In fact, you're going to call the workout. Just say yes to a little bit of rhabdo. But you censored yourself, which is probably wise.

[B]

Probably wise.

[A]

Rhabdo can be a very serious medical condition and require hospital visits and dialysis and long term issues. So we don't tend to make jokes about it.

[B]

Yeah, I don't want to make light of something that is so serious. And so the discussion here is about two different types of downhills and how we use these in training theory to develop speed for everybody. Not just athletes doing really steep races, but also athletes that are trying to get better in every context. And so we're going to talk about two of them. They're called speed downhills here and then strength downhill. So speed downhills are using slight downhills usually, but not just those to improve your turnover in some way. And then strength downhills are more of the Just say no to Rabdo, where you incite some amount of muscle breakdown and come back from that stronger via the repeated bout effects. So those are the two speed downhills and strength downhills.

[A]

And let's start with speed downhills. First is. They are fun. I think they're my favorite kind of downhill, is when you find this downhill. Like, for me, I actually have one up in the mountains in Ned. And I think you named it on Strava. It's called, like, coming in like a wrecking ball.

[B]

Oh, I came in like a wreck.

[A]

Came in like a wrecking ball. Yeah.

[B]

Miley siren. And that's not.

[A]

I just up that lyric so hard.

[B]

Megan, how do you. Don't say that.

[A]

You guys sing it.

[B]

You sing that.

[A]

You gotta sing it. You named it.

[B]

Wait, what? Me? You don't have brought it up. Yeah, I came in like a wrecking ball, dude.

[A]

Hi. Yes, that was good.

[B]

Oh, no, it was really bad.

[A]

No, that was actually really good.

[B]

I've been singing to Ollie with all my might. At night when I put him to

[A]

sleep, I know I hear it upstairs. You're singing frozen loud.

[B]

Oh. So Ollie, when I'm like, putting him to sleep, I feed him some milk. And he really depends on this milk to go to sleep. Like, if we don't give him enough, he'll be waking us up in the middle of the night. So this is an important responsibility in our family.

[A]

And you've taken this task upon yourself, which I love. You're like, megan, I will get him 8 ounces, I promise you.

[B]

Yeah, we're gonna science the shit out of it. And so I plan, like, Frozen and Moana and different songs, but it's gotten to the point that he looks up to at me, and if I don't start singing, he stops drinking. And so not only do I sing to him, I've been researching how to sing better because I never got voice lessons.

[A]

Oh, that's really cute.

[B]

And it's not like I have a good voice, but I've read about, like, how you direct the air across your vocal cords and where it comes all that Trish trying to get better. He's like, if I'm going to be singing for a boy, I want to get better at this. So hopefully people heard that a little bit. In my Wrecking Ball, this is David

[A]

trying to get biomechanical Efficiency. Efficiency for your vocal cords. Classic.

[B]

So that is a great example of that, which is like a little bit steeper downhill. But my favorite example is when you filmed me last week. Doing mile repeats where the first like kilometer of our mile repeat in our neighborhood is a slight down of 1%. So almost imperceptible. If you were on a bike, you wouldn't have to pedal in that direction, you'd have to pedal the other way, but not a steep downhill. And this is where I think the speed downhills really come in handy, that for a lot of athletes, if you're doing intervals like that are in all of the swap plans, instead of doing them on a slide up or a flat, if you have those slight downhills like a. A creek path that goes alongside a gently flowing creek, doing it with that gravity can be so beneficial in improving neuromuscular output. And I think that's the main driver here is the biomechanical and nervous system connection that allows longer intervals to feel so much more sustainable and thus lead to better power output. So even in a vacuum, it is raw power output, but in a better way once you go longer on those segments.

[A]

And I think it becomes even more important when you live at altitude. And it's hard to hit some of those biomechanical pieces naturally on flat ground or on uphills. And I feel like that to me is also really fun. But I think the biggest caveat throughout this entire discussion is just make sure that you're doing this in the context of preventing injuries and thinking about the overall mechanical health of your body. Because downhills also come with a lot of forces. Forces too come with a lot of forces. Come with a lot of forces.

[B]

The forces are a good thing because often it's letting you put out more

[A]

power and that is adaptation. And we'll talk about the forces of like the eccentric forces are something that you can adapt to, but I think at the same time too, you know, it can be too much force in the body, especially if your body's injury prone.

[B]

Well, here's an interesting little corollary idea that I've had is that when I'm measuring athletes on short hills, they'll put out more power than they will on flats often.

[A]

Agreed. Yeah.

[B]

In a raw sense, like if you look at their great adjusted pace on short hill, usually two minutes or below, maybe up to three minutes. If they're fit over three minutes, their great adjusted pace will usually be lower than it would be on flats. Meanwhile, on slate downhills, you don't notice a huge difference at first. It mainly starts to accrue above three minutes. And so I think that these are especially useful once you're doing longer, more controlled intervals like I think especially for less advanced athletes, it's so hard to have your body do consistent turnover. And I think it's one reason that people love the treadmill so much. The treadmill belt is moving for you, so it's kind of pulling back. It's kind of simulates some of these adaptations. And doing slight downhills can get you there. And so if you're doing a stride, maybe just open up slightly on that little light grade, use those speed downhills just bit by bit, just making little decisions here and there, not doing it in a methodical way.

[A]

And I think it could be so helpful in terms of vibes and momentum too. Like, I. I personally love that feeling. Like it kind of feels like you're flying. And speed downhills, I think also really important to focus on biomechanics and form of like, you know, not carrying tension through the body, making sure that you're not straining, because otherwise it's like you're just, Just increasing the forces on the body.

[B]

Forces, forces, so many forces on your taint. You gotta be careful about that.

[A]

I mean, postpartum, you're like, yeah, I've really got to think about this. Yeah, downhill running postpartum. And I'm like, so we gotta make sure everything stays up there.

[B]

Yeah, up there you were pointing at your throat.

[A]

I mean, it really, it really gotta be up there. Yeah.

[B]

And then the other side, maybe the one that we're most known for, we're calling strength downhills here. This is the eccentric adaptation that happens from more serious, longer, less focused efforts. So the just say no to rhabdo work, I've written and talked about that before on the podcast, but largely this is to harness the eccentric contractions that lead to the repeated bout effect. And so we have a little bit of a science snack here that. So a 2016 review in the European Journal of Applied Physiology of this quote. Downhill running induces severe lower limb tissue damage, indirectly evidenced by a massive increase in plasma creatine kinase and myoglobin concentration or inflammatory markers. And so basically, downhills cause damage in the muscles due to Megan's forces. But what's so fascinating is what happens after the body absorbs those forces. So the first time you do a session like this, you'll get very sore, you'll have really bad blood work. If you went in and got measured the second session, even if it's separated by two weeks, even if it's just 30 minutes, your body will have a transformatively different response. And so not only will you be better on Downhills. And then here's the ultimate kicker. You will also have better running flats. And we do not know exactly why that is, but that type of adaptation is huge, and not just for trail runners.

[A]

Actually, some of my favorite studies are the studies that are looking at flat ground running economy after having a significant downhill stimulus. And many of them find changes at two weeks in terms of benefits in flat ground running economy. And I see that within myself. Like, I go and do a steep downhill and sometimes I feel it even sooner than two weeks. Like six days later, I'm like, wow, I got pop in my legs.

[B]

That happened to you just the other week, right?

[A]

Oh, yeah. I did. Not even a crazy downhill. I did.

[B]

It was steep, though.

[A]

I mean, it was a steep downhill. And I ran it like decently fast at. I did like 2,500ft of downhill within a 14 mile run. And like four days later I was

[B]

like the pops back just on the five trail. And I think sometimes that's lost in road running. I think in trail running we understand this. And in fact, a lot of the trail runners out there who don't do methodical training plans and still have great results, probably they're harnessing the adaptation from 1, uphills, our threshold work, and 2 downhills lead to this strange muscular strength element and nervous system element that you can't harness other ways. And so it is a methodical training approach. It's just not realized. Um, but this also works for roadrunners. I find that, like, when training an athlete for the Boston Marathon and we focus a little bit more on downhills, I'll see running economy improvements on their flat running, and then I'm just like, fuck, we need to do this all the time. Like, even when you're training for Chicago Marathon, which is totally flat, you need to be doing this some. And so basically the conclusion here is downhills in this manner, even if you're not doing steep downhills, like if you're a roadrunner, you know, I coach an athlete in Florida, and they did a two and a half hour long run, which is the longest they'll ever go, and went like 25 miles. And in the context of that run, they did all the downhills at marathon pace or faster, and they're little downhills. Right? But that's enough to instigate some of these adaptations, particularly if you haven't done a ton of it before. And they came back and all of a sudden it's like, boom, boom, boom, pop. The, the numbers on flat ground look great.

[A]

And I think the tricky thing sometimes is how do you quantify that, especially for, like road marathoners, but also for trainers too. And I love, like, one of my favorite styles to do this is just finding flow on downhills. And I usually say, like, on 50% of the downhills, on this focus long run, we're just going to find flow and run it at race pace or similar. And, you know, use that as a way to adapt the body.

[B]

Yeah. And how you cue it, I don't know, million different ways.

[A]

Oh, it's this. I think this, this is tricky.

[B]

Yeah, so tricky. And I always say, you know, as steeper, steeper than your race, faster than race day. And I think that generally applies, though. You know, if you're doing a half marathon or a 10K, you don't want to be doing just like bombing intervals, like mile pace all the time, though some of that is good. And so the hard part is these adaptations come through such a weird physiological mechanism. And so perhaps my favorite study ever on this came from 2020. And they went a step further than just looking at the mechanical adaptations here and added in a neuromuscular wrinkle. And so here's a quote from an article I wrote on Patreon, theorizing that the delayed onset soreness, like we've talked about, where it gets worse over multiple days, that can be experienced after downhill running could be the result, and here's a quote of acute compression axinopathy of the nerve endings in the muscle spindle. So in other words, it's not just muscle damage. In fact, it might not be that much of that at all. Is it nervous system impact? And so for me, that sets off every alarm bell in my brain because fatigue is a nervous system process. It is central fatigue in the brain affecting peripheral fatigue in the legs. And so this is a peripheral example that connects to central, which might be the ultimate hack for fatigue resistance. Downhills lead to fatigue resistance, and we don't know why, but it is so fucking cool.

[A]

In fact, I feel like seeing you walk around, it kind of just rings the bell of acute compression axonopathy. I'm like, that's. That's what's happening to David right now.

[B]

His axons. His axons are fogged, damaged, damaged. But that's something I've seen over time is like, even if an athlete's training for a purely flat race, once the rubber hits the road, even if it's not about weekly miles, I think sometimes weekly miles is a red herring for catching some of these downhill adaptations, we assume it's an athlete's doing high weekly volume, when in reality it's that they're accumulating a lot of these eccentric contractions and then that leads to central fatigue adaptations. Obviously this is all just a theory and who the fuck knows? Um, but a few more fun facts that I just wanted to read from the research. First, women demonstrate quicker return to baseline levels. Kind of like that. It's like the mice.

[A]

I feel like I see that anecdotally within training actually, is that females are often sore for. For the shorter periods of time.

[B]

Yeah. Well, look at me right now. Yeah, I've never felt more like a man.

[A]

I was gonna say maybe this is the man flu version of doms.

[B]

Oh, no, no, no, no.

[A]

You got man doms.

[B]

Man doms.

[A]

No, no. Maybe this is just subjective.

[B]

Is this a new beach bell? This is man doms.

[A]

The dom's bell. The man bell.

[B]

Subjective. Just me being a coward over here. No, no, I think it's more like I am just embracing my masculinity. Like I do have toxic masculinity and it's mainly in my right now from all that ck. Um, then number two, faster twitch muscle fiber. Fiber typologies both need this more and get more sore. And that's a place in our training. Theory that I think is especially relevant is that if you're a purely slow twitch athlete, which happens in. In trail running, but most athletes listening to this, almost everybody is intermediate fiber. Um, and for those athletes breaking down the muscle fibers when. My theory is that when they rebuild, they rebuild with more slow twitch characteristics, which improves your endurance. So faster twitch athletes need this more.

[A]

I also feel like they need it more frequent too, in the sense that I feel like those athletes lose that stimuli like more often. And so thus they need like, you know, if you're heading into a race, like, you can't have had your last stimulus three weeks out.

[B]

So true. And that's a wild point because more and more I'm seeing that, that like, especially for men a week out, we probably need to be reinforcing this still. We need to be doing some steep, quick downhills and hopefully they're already adapted so they don't get sore. But before Leadville last year, I did my big just say no to rhabdo day, like eight or nine days out, and then a secondary one on the Sunday before the Saturday race where I did Ranger repeats with Drew. And that's weird, but I had more fatigue resistance than I've ever had. And I'm an intermediate muscle Fiber guy, my faster twitch at baseline. Also one of those man man doms situations. Um, and so doing this a little bit closer to race is probably more important, probably less important for female athletes and slower twitch athletes, but still somewhat important. And if you look at athletes training for steep races, they'll do some of it. And also goes for athletes doing Boston, I think think your last downhill stimulus shouldn't be that much more than 10 days out to maintain these adaptations because they last a while, but not forever.

[A]

What is the interval in which if you haven't done a steep downhill in a while, that you personally get sore?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty quick.

[A]

10 days, I would say. You think it's 10 days?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

See, for me, I think it's a lot longer. Like, I think for me it's like three to four weeks.

[B]

The research aligns with what you say, that these adaptations last for a long time. So you don't need to push it that often. There's a lot of people listening to this are like, cool story, bro, but this is a flat place I live in. And for those athletes, one, we're not talking about, like Ranger trail here in Boulder all the time. And the reinforcement mechanisms probably every 4ish weeks. Like, I think every 4 weeks. For a serious stimulus where it's the focus, it's probably enough to harness most of the adaptations. And then everything else can be background where, you know, you just go to your local hill. It might be a landfill in Florida. And then run up and down or a bridge or something. I think landfill, saying landfill there might have been like discriminatory against Florida.

[A]

Actually. I don't know. I'm thinking of Tara Dower, who used to live in Virginia beach and she did her repeats on Trash Mountain, which is that Cool, cool, cool.

[B]

I'm not being a bitch. No, but so like going and just running up and down consistently, not as a workout, but on your long run, pushing the downhills in the manner that method Megan described can be super beneficial. And so combining these two principles of using slight downhills to improve your actual turnover, your ability to run fast for extended periods of time, which will then, I think part of that's just psychological. It feels better to do. And then combining it with these strength downhills where you harness this as steeper, steeper than your races, faster than race day, those two elements can lead to, like, nonlinear improvements in fitness and performance that are kind of mind boggling and might simulate high volume without doing high volume.

[A]

And I love that point because it's like I think you included that you made a vert focused training plan for Patreon. And I feel like it, it encapsulates a lot of these points within there, especially nailing the specificity. Like, this doesn't have to be like. I do think it can be beneficial as a year round thing, but I do think that pulsing up vert, like maintaining speed and then pulsing up vert very specifically into race day, has a lot of benefits.

[B]

Yeah. And I think year round you're just trying to reinforce background adaptations. You don't need to be sore six days later like I am.

[A]

That's.

[B]

That's an extreme situation. And you gotta be so careful. Huge disclaimer here because, like, you can die from this. And that's my big worry about the Cody video is like, what if somebody on YouTube who doesn't have any content just goes out and does something crazy?

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like, I don't know, Megan, I'm scared.

[A]

I feel like I should take a video of you walking around an acute compression exopathy and just be like, oh, my God, that made you laugh so hard you coughed.

[B]

I mean, when you start making fun of my nervous system, that's a key to my heart because that also means my fatigue resistance is getting better.

[A]

It is getting better.

[B]

And, and, and the hard part is like cycling or something like that. Purely concentric motion. I think running requires eccentric motion because even on flat ground, you're getting more eccentric contractions as you fatigue, because your duty factor increases, your foot's on the ground longer, the knee snake sinks more. As the knee sinks, you're getting eccentric contractions. So if we don't think about them, we are losing sight of muscular resilience. And in the idea of fatigue resistance or durability, muscular resilience is the humongous focus of it. And I think the hard part in training theory is often athletes that do super high volume, like huge miles are rewarded. But I think huge miles are just an end around to muscular resilience. Because the aerobic system can also come from biking or other things. So if you can develop muscular resilience through downhills, maybe you don't need to run as much, which might be better for health and joy and also leveling the playing field of people who have 20 hours versus those that do.

[A]

And also hanging out with Cadence.

[B]

Yeah, Constance.

[A]

Constance. I mean, there probably is.

[B]

Are they twin?

[A]

It's so funny that I had said her name was Cadence.

[B]

Oh, shit, girl. Dude, I'm thinking about constant robots, double the draft.

[A]

I feel like we got Ex machina going on over here.

[B]

I can see it.

[A]

Is ex Machina or.

[B]

That's a great movie. Her.

[A]

The other one. Yeah.

[B]

Oh, my goodness gracious. You're like Megan, Cadence and Constance.

[A]

I know. You gotta tell them about Duty Factor. It's been too long since I heard you talk about Duty Factor.

[B]

Oh, shit. We've talked in the past that we can remove this. That at some point.

[A]

This should be good.

[B]

At some point, we want to try to consume.

[A]

Oh, God. What are you. Why am I talking about? I'm worried about this. I mean, I. I have no idea what's going to come out of your mouth right now.

[B]

At some time, we should try to consume, like, pornography together.

[A]

Yeah. We've never done that together.

[B]

Never done that.

[A]

I have never done it at baseline, which is concerning. Why have I never done that?

[B]

Megan, you need to be.

[A]

I just. I. I was scared. I was like, it's going to take. I'm gonna get the Trojan horse virus.

[B]

Okay?

[A]

I'm like, how do you go about consuming this? This no one has ever taught me.

[B]

No one has ever taught you.

[A]

I mean. No.

[B]

Megan. I will light your way, young grasshopper.

[A]

Please do. But it's going to be Cadence and Constance. Please.

[B]

ChatGPT. Please create. Actually, I guess they disabled Sora, their video creator. So Gemini, please. Cadence, Constance, Megan, me. Perfect.

[A]

This feels safe, too. Why? I just. There was a part of me that was like, I don't know how to access this.

[B]

No, no, I. I totally validate that. And also, you know, there's a lot of societal, cultural, you know, stuff that goes into that, that goes far beyond the podcast.

[A]

I think this is a thing you need to do with friends. And at, like, sororities, we just never sat around watching porn.

[B]

Well, thankfully, at our fraternity, that's just.

[A]

That's what you did.

[B]

Okay, on to the Everest news. Before we do that, quick promo for Patreon. So much fun going down there. There like 40 training plans. Maybe even more than that. The vert plan that came out last week, we answer questions there. For the $10 tier, we'll do your heart rate zones with any hard workout over two minute intervals. And then just like so many articles. Bonus 186 bonus podcasts. It is just a huge amount of content there.

[A]

We have a lot of fun with those podcast episodes. Weirder, perhaps, than these? Megan, that's the same. I mean, we just went hard there. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, definitely.

[A]

I do still think they're weirder.

[B]

Weirder.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Weirder.

[A]

I think so, huh? Yeah.

[B]

Okay, so if you want to check that out? You can. But also, more even training focused than the podcast is often, because we just answer listener questions on those bonus episodes. So. Patreon.com swap swap. Now we're going on to very quick Mount Everest news, which is quite sad, but also interesting from a physiology perspective. Um, this is an article from the Independent that went viral last week, and here's a quote from it. Investigators say guides on Mount Everest. Everest used a range of method, methods to force helicopter evacuations. And they did this for essentially, insurance fraud, allegedly.

[A]

And across a lot of evacuations. I think this included 5,000 international climbers from 2022 to 2025, which is like a short. I'm like, I didn't even know 5000 climbers run Everest in that period of time.

[B]

Yeah, that's. It's wild. And so the methods include faking medical emergencies and here is the money quote. Lacing food with large amounts of baking powder to stimulate gastric stress commonly associated with altitude sickness.

[A]

Okay, that is wild because they're giving them bicarb cholera.

[B]

Yeah, bicarb cholera.

[A]

We're gonna need an ICD code now for bicarb cholera.

[B]

So baking powder is baking soda plus a caking agent. So just like sodium bicarbonate that we talk about all the time on here. And interestingly, if you give someone enough of it, and I wonder how they did this. Like, how they fit it into their food.

[A]

That's a good question. Probably just mixing it into food. Like, uncooked. I doubt. I mean, I would have to be honest.

[B]

I feel like it would have to be a drink to make it so that it was. You could get enough of it in

[A]

and so it could be palatable. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So I'd be curious. Like, honestly, this would be. If I was the lawyer for them, like, tell me. This would be my. No, this would be my big defense. It's like, how can our clients possibly have done this? Because the taste would be too overwhelming. Honestly, it's on the climbers.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like you can mix it with enough stuff.

[B]

Maybe, Maybe. But it points out why when we talk about sodium bicarbonate as a performance enhancer for harder training, you see the wrinkles there. That if you take it just plainly. And though baking powder has other ingredients, so it's a little more complicated, but if you take it plainly, this can happen to you. That you could need medical evacuation. We're not just talking about having to go to the bathroom once or twice. I think sometimes when people take sodium bicarbonate and have an issue of having to go to the bathroom. They blame it on the sodium bicarbonate rather than just blaming it on the fact that this just happens in running sometimes. But at its worst, this is just like norovirus or, you know, know our example of bicarb cholera. And so the fact that they used it for this scheme. Allegedly. Very interesting, very scary. Also points out why these advanced methods of ingestion probably are important.

[A]

I feel like Morton should reach out to these disgrace climbers who had their, like, experience rumen on Everest. I can't imagine going to Everest and coming away with bicarb cholera and be like, here's a free subscription for a year.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no, no. Those are privileged people. Anyway, they're going to Everest to climb.

[A]

I mean, bicarb is expensive.

[B]

They're paying so much money for that. You know who they should sponsor?

[A]

Who?

[B]

The guides.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Because the guides have proven how much their product is needed.

[A]

Yeah, they need it.

[B]

The guides all along have been sponsored by Morton.

[A]

But I actually imagine that having bicarb on board for climbing Everest make a huge difference.

[B]

Yeah, it makes a big difference at altitude. There's some interesting studies on that.

[A]

Yeah. I haven't actually thought about the altitude piece as much.

[B]

Yeah. When I think about, oh, God, take a shot. When I think about Leadville, you know, I'm. I'm contemplating my own mortality a lot now as an athlete, you know, and when I think about it and I'm thinking about, well, well, when is the record going to be broken? How much is it going to be broken by.

[A]

Actually, I saw someone ask Hans if he was going to raise Leadville. I think Hans, if he adapts to altitude, you just move to Boulder. Is a rare guy that could get it.

[B]

Hans could beat anything I've done 25 times over. And I would love.

[A]

But it'd be delightful. I'd be like, he'd love it. He's young and fit.

[B]

But when you. You add up the advantages I have, I think obviously fueling is the big one. Who else can take in 150 grams per hour at altitude? Some people, but not that many. And not that many ultra runners have committed to it. Like, I still think, think that's my advantage. Like, if I happened to do a big race coming up, my training sucks relative to what it could be. A lot of time with constants. But that's not gonna help you in ultra that much. I mean, aerobically it will, but mechanically it won't. But the fueling, like, no One's really still pushing those numbers, and I don't know why that hasn't happened. I don't know how many people have experimented with it. I think I still have an advantage. But the other is I do pay bicarb. I don't know how that many people take bicarb at altitude. So I think that does play a role. And so here's a vote. Let's get the guides sponsorships rather than charging them with crimes, because this is pretty cool science.

[A]

I mean, I feel like reward this behavior. I'm like, rewarding bicarb cholera. Sounds tricky.

[B]

Should we get them a subscription to our new pornography service?

[A]

Constants and cadence.

[B]

Just. Just because. Okay, next one is on. I called it. Titles are hard in the outline. And so I sent this to you yesterday because I was going through the Journal of Applied Physiology looking at all their studies, and, you know, usually it's like needle in a haystack. Most of the studies aren't relevant for the Pockets podcast, but I saw a title that caught my eye and so I wanted to check it out. And here is the title. Mia Culpa colon. So how does her story so, like, not history, but her story capitalized H E R look in my history capitalized his. And I was like, I have to check this one out. This one looks wild.

[A]

And you texted it to me, and I was in the sandbox with Leo and I was like, oh, no, this title. This title goes hard. But here's the thing. Yeah, Yeah. I feel like we would not be reading this article without the title.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And every once in a while, I feel like when you have a title that is so out there, it's like I click on it and I read it, and that's what happened here.

[B]

Yeah. And you know, it's a great subject matter that I wanted to talk about in a real way, while also talking about the fact that titles are hard because Mia Culpa. So how does her story look in my history? Pretty darn bad. I just got to be object from an objective perspective. As you said, we would never have read it. But I struggle with this every time, even on the podcast. Like, our podcast listenership depends on the title we use more than the content of the podcast. Like, I'm sure our podcasts vary a ton in quality. The ones that we think are the best often don't get the most listens. It's whatever has the sexiest first thing in the title. And so I see where this title comes from. It comes from being like, oh, what is Often maybe asking an AI what is a good title for this? And he did come up with something that I read, so good for him.

[A]

Ah, I know, but there's like, as a researcher, I'm like, just don't do it.

[B]

Yeah. And it's such a cool subject matter. So this was a researcher that had worked for 50 years and went back through all of his research and looked at inclusion, gender inclusion across all of it. And to me, what a fantastic way to summarize your career. In fact, I think he's being a little too hard on himself in the title, even, like, mea culpa. He did a darn good job, I think, overall. But as we think about inclusion, we talk all the time about, you know, female athlete representation in studies and female athlete researchers and things like that. And what that requires, though, is just looking back at data without judgment, without saying, like, oh, you're canceled. Without just saying, this guy at the end of his career that doesn't have time to rectify it anymore is out here saying, look, here's how I messed up in this process. That is so cool. And just major respect for doing that.

[A]

And we need that, too, because he was looking specifically at three journals within exercise physiology and found that in those three journals, that female participants only included. Included 15% of the total participants, which is wild. And then of the authors in the journals, it was only 23% across these three journals. And it's kind of wild when you think about stats like that and how in exercise physiology, that's so much more stark, honestly, than other fields. And, like, we need to fix that. Okay, but here is the point. And this. I'm like, I'm gonna get the heebie jeebies to, like, counter and, like, bring my energy to say this.

[B]

You're really rolling your shoulders right now.

[A]

I have a hard time thinking about this.

[B]

You're breathing from the taint.

[A]

I'm breathing from the taint. My taint's on my throat. As you established before. Do you think it's okay? I feel like he is grounding himself within the field of female researchers. Like, he's putting himself at the center of the story while talking about the need for female inclusion. And for me, I'm like, maybe just work with some young female, like, scientists within the field, put them on a research paper and do this all together. Like, I feel like it needs a female on this paper.

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah. This is the thing.

[B]

It's like, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.

[A]

I know. And this is why I bristle against it. It's because that's, like, the natural feeling that I have. But then there's a piece of me that's like, he wants to be inclusive. He's fostering inclusion within journals, and that is fucking wonderful. And we should uplift everyone that does that.

[B]

You know, I was just reminded.

[A]

So those are the two competing points.

[B]

I have Ashley Simpson. Pieces, pieces. Pieces of me.

[A]

I have a lot of pieces of me.

[B]

No, no. I just was trying to make a joke by saying, no.

[A]

Shooting a dead, like, girl.

[B]

No, let's be serious. I think there was a brief moment in cultural conversation where it was like, step down from your platform and ideas like that. And I don't know how helpful that is.

[A]

And that's what I come back to is, like, I feel like we need everyone to be shouting inclusion from the rooftops. And at the end of the day, I feel, like, getting nitpicky in how you do that. And, like, reception of that creates challenges of inclusion itself. And so by me saying that, it's like. Like, I want to uplift anyone who screams inclusion from the rooftop, no matter how it's done.

[B]

Especially because he's saying. He's not saying, like, I'm the best at this. He's saying, like, look, I fucked up some end his career, which is beautiful.

[A]

I think that is beautiful.

[B]

Okay, I'm coming back to it. And not to convince, like, otherwise. I. I just think there are broader societal conversations that got so, like, you needed to be fluent. So fluent in the language of, like, what you're talking about that it made people scared to speak and then also made people push the other way. And not to say that it's a good thing to push the other way. I think it's actually a really bad thing. It's a. It's a part of human nature, though, that, like, the bigger the tent, the better. And, you know, I think this goes to political discussions or other things. It's like, just welcome everybody in who's receptive, and then hopefully in that process, the arguments and ideas can be persuasive enough to stand on their own own. And it's something I hope we do on the podcast. It's like, obviously, you get whiffs of our feelings on different topics, but, like, even if you disagree with us so strongly, we love you.

[A]

And also, or even if you disagree with us on how we do it, it's like, hopefully we're doing it with the intent of love. And I feel like, as I was reading this paper, he was doing it with the intent of love.

[B]

Exactly. And so his intent, I think at the forefront is awesome. The title.

[A]

But we read it.

[B]

And I do give you credit. Credit. Her story in a title. Yeah.

[A]

If I counting that with, like, my personal history, I'm kind of like, I don't know if this is the best way to go about doing it, but

[B]

it's beautiful that it did get done.

[A]

And that's the thing, is it got done, and it's uplifting women. And so you know what? I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and my taint in my throat and call it a day.

[B]

That shouldn't be the conclusion of this study. Don't keep your mouth should be shut.

[A]

Oh, God.

[B]

That's the exact opposite of the conclusion of the study. It's that we need your voice. Voice and not my voice.

[A]

God damn.

[B]

Okay, But I mean, maybe the biggest.

[A]

But that's the thing, is I feel like every female is the same way. They're like, I'm gonna keep my mouth shut and my taint in my throat.

[B]

I mean, and maybe the biggest conclusion of all is everyone out there, use your voice. Like, scream it as much as you can. And what comes on the other eye. And I. I think sometimes in saying, oh, this. We should only uplift this type of voice or whatever, it's a wrong approach to the problem, because you want to have the message to everyone to use their voice and, yes, to uplift voices, but also, we want, you know, anyone out there listening.

[A]

And that voice doesn't have to be perfect. And that's what I come back to, is it's better to put your voice out there than to try to be perfect in every way and have fear surrounding it. And I think by me pushing back against it, I worry that I create fear.

[B]

No, you're. You would literally.

[A]

Well, I'm doing it in a very nice way.

[B]

And you're literally the most open and like. Like, whatever person that you could ever see open in whatever person. That's exactly on our wedding vows.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Now let's go eat cake. All right. Do you want to talk about fatigue resistance test? I think we go straight to the Q and A.

[A]

Do you know what we had in our wedding vows? This dates us. Yeah, we had Cliff bars in our wedding vows.

[B]

Oh, I like Cliff bars, though.

[A]

I mean, I haven't had a Cliff bar in, like, six years.

[B]

Wait, no, we have had them periodically.

[A]

I mean, the chocolate Clif bars, they're still good. They're still great.

[B]

But put them in a microwave. They're kind of like cookies.

[A]

Yeah, but I haven't had one in many years.

[B]

Yeah. What do you replace them with? We have Cliff Builders bars.

[A]

We have Builders bars.

[B]

Does those count?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, those are. Those are different than the Cliff bar. I mean, I. It was my wedding vows, and. Yeah, I was thinking about, like, the original Clif bars.

[B]

We also have Gatorade chocolate protein bars,

[A]

which you feed our children a lot.

[B]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

I'm like, you got to stop doing that. But they're also, like, primarily chocolate based.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, chocolate's great. Real chocolate, perhaps not. Yeah, but these things. Gatorade chocolate protein bars, you look, if you have a sweet tooth out there, you've got to try these. Yes, I understand it's a candy bar, but this is a bar that will change your life.

[A]

I know. And Ollie doesn't even have his full set of teeth yet, and you're like, here, develop a sweet tooth. Of course it is.

[B]

Unfortunately, my love language and also my dad's love language, who is helping with them this weekend. And I gave the kids a waffle, and I put syrup on it, and then dad comes in. He's like, you know what that needs a ton of chocolate syrup.

[A]

I'm just like, what's happening over here?

[B]

This is where I came from, Megan.

[A]

I know, I know.

[B]

This is my culture.

[A]

I, like, did the math yesterday. I mean, it's like, we uplift all food, but at some point, you're like, my kid has consumed chocolate syrup and chocolate pudding and Reese's chocolate and Gatorade chocolate bar. And I was like, we just need some vegetables.

[B]

But there's going to be no issues with food in our family, mentally.

[A]

So, I mean, puts chocolate sauce on a cereal, we wouldn't have an issue.

[B]

True. Okay, fair point. I think we should skip the fatiguers as a snack.

[A]

Okay, let's go to Q and A.

[B]

We can talk about that more. And if you want to hear about it, it's on Patreon of last week. This is a really cool training wrinkle that you might like. Okay, so on to Q and A. Do we have anything to talk about before we get there? No, I don't think so. Hey, hey. Give the podcast 5 stars. Click follow if you can. We ask that, like, every four weeks or so. It really helps people find. It also just helps the podcast continue momentum, which is huge. Like, if you follow any podcasts and you've been listening to a while and you wonder, like, why it just peters away. Usually momentum plays a huge role in how people find things in this World. And so if the momentum goes the other way, it can be rough. So, hey, here's a vote. Just go five stars on Apple, Spotify, and click follow.

[A]

You know what? Next week, I'm going to ask that.

[B]

That. Whoa.

[A]

I'm. I don't think I've ever done that in podcast history. I'm going to be like. Like, I don't even know what the. Like, follow. Give us five stars.

[B]

Just follow. Five stars. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

I got to practice my terminology.

[B]

You're going to use your throat taint?

[A]

I'm going to use my throat taint to advertise for a podcast. I struggle with these things. Oh, no.

[B]

I mean, of course. Like, it is. It's so hard to ask for anything in the world. And, I mean, there's a question later on on coaching that I think is really relevant here, where they're asking us, how would we start coaching now if we didn't have, like, whatever we had when we first started, which at the time was Facebook posts. But even then, how cringe would that have been to you to put out a, like, hey, I'm coaching for free, like, thing online? It would be your worst nightmare.

[A]

Oh, my absolute worst nightmare. And I never did it. You did it for me. It was great.

[B]

Yeah. I'm your publicist. Yeah, but you're the brilliant one, right? Like, you have all the tools. Like, you are the star of the family in every single way. I never would have been able to accomplish anything I did without you. Like, even coaching. Coaching. The benefit was that you were a part of the family, and so that, like, if Megan was a part of it when you were the ultimate queen of the entire sport, then that counts for something. And so, you know, it's. It's cool. Like, we're symbiotic in that manner. Do you want to read any articles on how to use your throat taint Pepper? Because I read those.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Essentially, you want the air coming from up on the diaphragm to the lower end.

[A]

The thing is, like, if you could, you would.

[B]

If I could, I would read those articles. Oh, for sure.

[A]

Yeah. You read everything. It's like, you know, trying to maximize your. Your singing voice. I love it.

[B]

Okay, first question. After 10 years of hearing David say race days are celebrations and assuming he was full of shit, I finally understand what that means. Today I raced for the first time in almost five years. I've run consistently that whole time, and my adventure focus has shifted away from races, but I failed to make it to start line several times. A few for injuries, some to self doubt a lot for believing I hadn't earned earned the fun of a race by training to the point that the outcome felt guaranteed. After progress with a therapist, I signed up for a 4 mile trail race. Decided I would work from your 5k and 10k plan while in the confines of a very busy life and faithful with the race. My goal for the race was just to be grateful to be racing and have no self criticism. I made it through without ever looking at my watch. No self judgment. Also the course finished with a 92nd hill where I dropped my fastest interval of the whole training block to pull away for the overall win. Thank you so much for the joy you bring to the running community and especially today for the joy you helped me find in myself.

[A]

That is so beautiful.

[B]

It's usually a listener corner type message, but I just wanted to have that in because it's race season now and this is the shit. This is the best stuff in the world that you get to a point where you're just kind of gonna celebrate no matter what. And this athlete won. And how many athletes will win? Not many. Um, but to idea that like I think this athlete would've celebrated if they finished 47th place and Shat themselves. Like, it just feels like they had that epiphany.

[A]

And I feel like the thing with this epiphany though is I feel like you need a constant re reminder this epiphany because like, if you go and send the shit outta this race and win, it's like I feel like the brain then starts tying these like, you know, future expectations to races, which can be a productive thing. But I feel like still viewing future races now as a celebration is actually the ultimate challenge. Is like once you've done this once, repeat it again and again and again.

[B]

Yeah, no, it's so true. I mean, one of the reasons that I'm writing that like series of posts theoretically on Patreon is because I want to sit down a little bit more in what's already happened and stop just building to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing because it goes accident. Leadville javelina, Western States. Leadville Javelina. And then the next thing, next thing. And then what I found is all those next things have been canceled recently, right? Like I had the idea of maybe I'll go for a world record, maybe I'll go for Black Canyon and now something else. And theoretically like most, they're probably all going to be canceled. I mean, who knows knows. But that to me shows I have actually fallen into the trap of the wrong way of thinking, where I know this intellectually and I feel this, but at the same time, my actions have not supported this. Thus I need to take a step back. And so taking a step back to write this in process, I think might help me move into the next chapter of my career, which will still have big goals, but maybe not the Alexander Hamilton. Why does he write like he's running out of time, like, I don't need to run, like I'm running out of time anymore?

[A]

That's so beautiful. And I feel like we need those constant re reminders. Like, I feel like sometimes in coaching athletes, the hardest time to have that reminder is after a big success.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

And sometimes it's easier coming off an injury or coming off, you know, a long layoff or an illness or a challenge or whatever it is. And it's like, how do you channel that mindset when things are going well?

[B]

Well, it's really easy for me now because I can't walk.

[A]

So this is great.

[B]

Yeah. And for you to heart, you know, like, we've had a lot of conversations about this in the last week, things like this.

[A]

We actually had a whole date night conversation about this. It was really helpful.

[B]

That was such a fun date night where we just talked about our own athletic futures and how to think about it. And it's so important to process all the time for everybody. And running and athletics, it's a lifelong thing, hopefully, you know, like, even if it's not like racing long ultras, how do you process a lifelong thing where no one's ever going to tell you to stop? It's so much of a mind fuck.

[A]

Well, I actually did have that thought process is I've had a few people. I had a cardiologist who was like, maybe you should retire. So he was like, maybe you should retire and become a coach now. Joke's on you, bro.

[B]

It took every ounce of willpower for

[A]

me not to be like, you were in that appointment. And I could see your brain just go steamy.

[B]

I almost said, well, she's the best coach in the world, so what do you say about that?

[A]

But that was a, you know, a harsh statement. But, like, in times when I do have these blips and these challenges of the heart, there is a part of me that's like, maybe I should retire. But I think the hard part about, like, true running and racing is like, we just don't retire.

[B]

What does retirement even mean?

[A]

I know, I mean, it's like, you know, Jesse Dickens Actually just retired from Nordic Ski racing. And that makes more sense because it's

[B]

like, it's all consuming.

[A]

It's all consuming the training, the racing, the traveling. Like, she's barely at home in the winter months and there's a huge barrier

[B]

to entry with World Cups that like, you need to do all this stuff to even have an entry.

[A]

Yeah. And so it's like so much more of it, like, all consuming life process. We're struggling. We can pop in and we can pop out. And you very rarely see anyone retire from sport. And I just think that's interesting. I think it's a beautiful thing. But I think at the same time it's also like, you know, how do you structure that when things get tough?

[B]

How do you conceptualize the process of fading away? Yeah, because fading away is inevitable. Well, I mean, eventually you fade away to nothingness, dust. Oh, shit. Oh, man. There we go.

[A]

I just stole it from you.

[B]

I touched my nipples.

[A]

If Megan said the word, you're really going at that.

[B]

What'd you say it was? My piggy fingers. I'm.

[A]

Dude, if you're touching yourself, you gotta say the own words.

[B]

Take that out.

[A]

No, no, you leave it in.

[B]

Okay. Yeah, so Constance said, but that the abyss for sure. And so how do you conceptualize that? And that's what this listener is getting at. So I actually know this person very well. They said they thought I was full of shit. I actually coached this athlete for many years.

[A]

Oh, wow. Did you coach them as they thought you were full of shit?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's beautiful, right? Because like a lot of these things, you know, it's just a chance to grow because hopefully this can apply to a lot of different elements of life for all of us that, like, you know, it's not like you fade away. You fade away in everything. You fade away as even in parenting, right? Like your kid. Your relationship with your kids peaks and then it valleys and then, you know, you later on, like, hopefully you still have a relationship with them, but you're going to see them for like, what is it, 90% of the time by the time they're 18?

[A]

Isn't that stock wild?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, there's so many stats like that. And so you put all this together and this is life and. And that's the power of athletics. I think so. Okay, next one on liver enzymes. Hi, David and Megan, I could go on for pages thanking you as a longtime marathon runner who has had a host of problems that females struggle. Struggle with, like eating disorder, period. Loss, reds, et cetera. You both have brought the accountability I need. Not to mention I'm a public defender who is feeling pretty fed up with the system, so appreciate your ex lawyer perspective as well. But onto my question potentially for the podcast, if you feel it'd be helpful to others. On the advice of a nutritionist. I've been seeking for red symptoms. I just got some blood work done. Everything came back fairly normal except two liver enzyme enzymes, AST and alt, which are elevated. Um, AST is. I don't need to read the numbers.

[A]

Not crazy elevated though.

[B]

Okay. Yeah.

[A]

And that's not mild elevations.

[B]

And I imagine actually we can just say that's not. Yeah, it's not like anyone knows their blood numbers.

[A]

David's gonna like backtrack and be like, someone knows their AST is 68.

[B]

Anonymity is important, but AST is 68, ALT is 44. So like Megan said, re reasonable. I know this is sometimes associated with muscle breakdown instead of liver issues. Is there a particular range that is considered normal for muscle breakdown? I had a double the day before, including 6 by 800 meter repeats and a lift. I know NSAIDs can cause issues, so I've been trying to avoid those. Although do use Voltaren occasionally. Could this be contributing? Anyway, thank you both for all your help and truly for being you.

[A]

Um, those numbers actually look pretty reasonable for after a big workout and after a lift. And so I think that's totally okay. But I would just keep it in mind in the context. Context of the other blood work. But I see quite a range in liver enzymes and they can vary based off of like, you know, training, muscle breakdown, hydration, viral, viral illnesses can cause elevations, medications, alcohol, a number of different things.

[B]

Yeah, I always go to alcohol and Tylenol. Those are two things to cut out immediately if you start to see chronic elevation. But day after a workout, this is totally normal. We see elevated liver enzymes all the time with no subsequent health issues that then clear up on future tests. I. I think the best time to get blood work is the day after a rest day.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

Yeah, give it a space and. And not have, like me right now, if I got blood work.

[A]

Oh, those liver enzymes would be nasty.

[B]

It'd be bad. It'd be so bad, it'd be very scary for everybody. Um, in fact, I was tired this weekend. I was like, shit, is this what having an inflammatory condition feels like? You know, because you deal with like, a context that we don't know for sure, but it's bad. And I'm like, how do you get through the day? How are you so brilliant and amazing all the time?

[A]

You got to 6:45 at night and you're like, megan, this is a lot.

[B]

So much a lot. So, yeah, elevated liver and signs. I'm like, that normal enough. Maybe get retested when you've had three days without muscle breakdown. So just easy training into a rest day, into test just to make sure there's no signal that you're missing. Most likely though, this is just noise.

[A]

Agreed. This is why it takes me forever to get blood work, though, because I'm like, I need a rest day before it needs to be fasting and sometimes that's tricky. Yeah, it's like, you know, when am I going to be fasting? On a Tuesday and then get blood work and then go for a run. It's hard.

[B]

So they talked about reds in there and this is a little aside on that fatigue I mentioned mention this week. I, on Friday and Saturday was doing very low intensity because my legs were a war zone. I couldn't really exercise in a serious way. So my heart rate, by that I mean 1 05. So my zone one goes up to like mid 1 30s or like low 1 30s. So that's extremely low training. It's. It's walking, essentially, even though I was trying to run and both days I didn't fuel with carbs during because I didn't need them.

[A]

How long were the training days?

[B]

Um, 90 minutes. 90ish minutes, but days. And I found that I was absolutely wrecked with fatigue the next of the rest of the day and maybe that was partially inflammation, but I really think that at this stage of my life I'm so much on a razor's edge with stress that if I don't fuel training, it wrecks me. So vote for fueling during exercise. The obvious one, if you want to be effective in the rest of your life, fuel during training and it will make you so much better.

[A]

Do you think, as you think about that. So you talked on YouTube about, you know, still having really good metabolic flexibility as a result of good fat oxidation. Do you think what you're saying there is changing in metabolic FL flexibility as a result of like the high carb fueling you've done? I don't think it is, but I'm curious what you think.

[B]

I think I'm just more on the razor's edge of stress.

[A]

Agreed.

[B]

Yeah. Both with age and the kids and work and everything, that if I give myself too much stress, I'm fucked. And I think that actually leads to an interesting training conversation in that the people that lecture you on ways to enhance your stress.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, even Killian. Killian will say, like, oh, well, you know, I, I do these very hard runs without fuel or whatever. They're usually people that have a freakish ability to absorb stress. So they are being selected for this ability, which, whether it's genetic or lifestyle or whatever, not one that most people have, and one that I think I actually did have when I was young, that has started to fade away as I've aged.

[A]

Well, you've also aged. And now we have two children and we spend a lot of time at 8,500ft. And those are different contexts.

[B]

Yeah. And you know what I'm remembering?

[A]

What?

[B]

Our ride home yesterday.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. Someone was screaming at all times.

[B]

Oh, I'm not thinking about that. Nope, nope. This is on you.

[A]

Oh, man.

[B]

I'm thinking I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be 38 years old at the start line of Western states.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Megan just pauses for a second, like a deep pause, and then just goes, wow.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Well, it was such a genuine surprise.

[A]

It was a genuine surprise. It was actually one of the funniest moments in our relationship. And I'm sorry, it was.

[B]

No, no, no, I, I, it's true.

[A]

It was genuine surprise. It was more thinking about the fact that you're 37 now, obviously, I know that. But your birthday is right before western seats. And I don't think I quite thought about the fact that you'd be 38 on race day. Not that it changes anything.

[B]

No, no, I understand, Megan, I know you gotta.

[A]

But it was, it was a very serious wow. And I apologize.

[B]

I think in both of our heads, you always feel 28 or whatever the age is, right. Like you feel 25 forever.

[A]

I just feel like we act like young kids, not kids. Maybe like young adults.

[B]

I think our Gen Z listeners might disagree.

[A]

Yeah, they're like, guys.

[B]

Listeners are like, no,

[A]

true. I am in my brain.

[B]

You're in your brain?

[A]

No, in my brain I feel quite young, even though I'm not.

[B]

Oh, for. I think it's Everybody. I think 80 year olds feel 25. Yeah, I think you just feel that age forever when your brain just kind of stops developing. At least that's my guess. I, I don't know. Our older listeners can let us know if it changes. Like if you're. That number increases. But it's maybe the biggest difficulty of aging, right. Is that you feel no different other than like the Physical manifestation of it. And so talk about fading away. Like that's where it comes in is that everything feels the same. And it's one of the big pushback I get when I say the age. Like age fucking matters. Like it's beautiful and you embrace it and you love the wisdom. But also it matters is that people are manifesting their mental processes of. Into the real world of physiology. It's like, no, actually two different things. And the mental processes can help. Like you can make it so that you're much closer to 25 in your physiology than you would be otherwise. But at a certain point it is reality of being exposed to open air for this long.

[A]

Well, yesterday you gave me shit for putting on eye mask. I got like a new eye mask with retinol cream. And you're like, get that off your face.

[B]

I think I specifically said that it looks like Batman is going to come to save Gotham from.

[A]

Yeah, it does. It really does.

[B]

But there's something going on.

[A]

I think it works actually. I'm glad I read the instructions though, because I was just going to wear it all night and it was like use for a maximum amount of time of 15 to 20 minutes.

[B]

If it works for 15 minutes, it'd work way better all night.

[A]

It kind of started burning morning.

[B]

That's what. That's.

[A]

I knew I was gonna wake up with a scalded face.

[B]

Reminds me when I put on Head and Shoulders on my rashes I had as a kid. So I'd eczema as a kid. And one night I got fed up with it. Never wanted to be the rash kid again. I talked about this on the podcast before, but then put Head and Shoulders on it and left it on overnight.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

Because there was a movie at the time where Head and Shoulders was used to combat aliens, I believe.

[A]

What?

[B]

Or no, it's some evolutionary process that was. It was weird. I mean comedy.

[A]

I think I actually kind of appreciate that because Head and Shoulders, we have

[B]

to look it up. That I'm not making this this out.

[A]

Can I look it up right now?

[B]

Yeah. Head and Shoulders movie.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And so we actually give it more description than that. No, I think that'll be enough.

[A]

Horror movie. Oh, there you go.

[B]

Yeah, the movie called Evolution 2001. So this came out right when I was like 13 years old. So yeah, perfect timing. And so I was very self conscious about my eczema. Put it on my rashes overnight and it burned so bad overnight.

[A]

Maybe you're an alien.

[B]

Well, no, no, in retrospect, they Were actual chemical burns.

[A]

Burns, yeah. Oh, yeah.

[B]

But so interestingly though, as the chemical burns wore off, the eczema didn't come back. Don't do it. Don't do it.

[A]

It's bad.

[B]

I almost died. Don't do it. Don't do it.

[A]

But Also, maybe you're 50 alien.

[B]

But it also shows I was doing science experiments back then too.

[A]

You've been doing science experiments your whole life?

[B]

It tingled quite a lot overnight. And I can't believe I just waited as my skin was burning off fully. And I mean, the X1 did come back. So I'm exaggerating, but it didn't come back for like a week. And in that week, I felt like Albert Einstein. I was like Marie Curie up in here. Um, okay, should we do. I think we should be done.

[A]

Let's go. Should we do John G. Before listener corner or let's do one more. Let's do one more.

[B]

Okay. You just scrolled way down. I don't know where we are now. I think leveling up is probably too much.

[A]

That's too much.

[B]

How about to go or not to go? Um, there's a local troll half marathon here in the Tucson area next weekend. I'm interested in jumping in, but want your advice as to whether I should or not. To give some context. I'm a low volume runner, 15 to 20 miles most weeks. Most of my runs are 30 to 40 minutes with longer runs averaging from 60 to 80.

[A]

80 minutes.

[B]

I have never run a half marathon before. In fact, my longest run to date was 10 miles. Given my lowly weekly volume and lack of experience with longer distances, do you think I should go for it or wait until I have actually trained specifically for an event like this? If I go for it. Any advice for what runs to prioritize this week? Thanks for all you do.

[A]

I think absolutely. Go for it. Go for it. Half marathon distance and having had 80 minute long runs and a history of a 10 miler, it's like, yeah, do it. I think jump up for it. It's exciting. It's gonna be a great training stimulus. Like fuel. Well, no doubt. Body.

[B]

Well, yeah, you know, you learn at the edge. Sub ultra. Ultra. The danger is low. So like, you know, worst case scenario, you're dnf. Best case scenario, you learn a lot. Whereas when you go into ultra's saying, just go for it. There might be health risks that we want to be careful about, but in this case, absolutely go for it. And in fact, here's your vote. If you're out there and you're debating something, go for it. Not saying that to myself, necessarily. To everybody else. To everybody else, go for it.

[A]

If you're healthy and you're debating something and it feels like a good context, go for it.

[B]

But maybe to me, perhaps you shouldn't go for it. Let's rapid fire some. I have to say that every week. Maybe a fun question for the pod. How moldy is too moldy for your handheld water bottles? Or do you keep them super clean? I just had a flake of mold or mildew break off from the nipple.

[A]

Same. That's why David just rubbed his nipples.

[B]

That's exactly why I did it. And it finally crossed a red line with me. Is there a red. I'm not going to make that joke. I have to imagine that the couple that keeps people around and allows a loogie just to jiggle on the table during a podcast.

[A]

Another one.

[B]

Yeah, we had it at it earlier. It kind of looks like a slug. It has.

[A]

It's a smaller one.

[B]

It is.

[A]

I'm getting better.

[B]

Yeah, you're healing. The nature is returning to health. Just a jiggle on the table during a podcast does not keep your bottles sparkling clean. Any tips of the trade to prevent this mildew growth?

[A]

We do not, in fact, keep our bottles sparkly clean. Sometimes I smell that and I'm like, woo.

[B]

Yeah. I try to use the kids bottle washer. So that's something to just have in your house is they just make packets. What is that called? Called. Do you know? You buy them?

[A]

Oh, the. Like the brushes or the brushes? The brushes. Oh, I. It's a cactus one. It's super cute, actually. It just sits on our counter, has a bunch of different brush lengths and

[B]

it works perfectly for handhelds.

[A]

And you can, like, put it in the handheld, but then you can also get the smaller ones up in the nipple, which is great.

[B]

Yeah, that's always what I've said.

[A]

That's always what we want. Okay, here's my other hack. Did you notice up in Ned, I have them in the freezer?

[B]

No.

[A]

If you put bottles in the freezer after. So I like, wash them, clean them, put them in the freezer, they won't grow mold.

[B]

Oh, interesting.

[A]

No. Isn't that fun?

[B]

Or maybe the mold just sits and waits. I don't know the science of it. I feel like heat disinfects.

[A]

It's waiting for Head and Shoulders shampoo now.

[B]

I feel like.

[A]

I feel like mold's not going to grow in the freezer.

[B]

May not grow, but it Might still be there.

[A]

I mean, but we can. It's probably be there on a lesser level.

[B]

I mean, I don't know exactly how it works.

[A]

Should we look that up?

[B]

No, we shouldn't. Because microorganisms usually go dormant in cold.

[A]

Yeah. And in the freezer feels cold enough.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

To at least have most of the

[B]

microorganisms as a beef bell debate date.

[A]

Are you team freezer or not?

[B]

I'm team wash.

[A]

I'm team wash and freezer.

[B]

But use these cactus type things and just a way to get things. Just scrub it. Scrub it before each use and it'll just keep it at bay and it takes like a second and it's quite satisfying.

[A]

Also, fun fact, you're kind of anti soap.

[B]

I'm not anti soap. I just don't want super soap around my food.

[A]

Yeah. But like ever, if I put like one drop of soap in a bottle to clean it, you're like there were

[B]

many times, times by many, I mean a couple in my life where my dad would make spaghetti and it would taste like soap and it scarred me for life.

[A]

Yeah. And now you're like anti soap across the board.

[B]

Yeah. But like, I mean I probably won't use that in bottles too much. But doing that and then combining that with like dishwasher is probably a good way to manage the, the mold growth. All right, so let's go on to listener corner before we do that. What do you want to do?

[A]

John Ganji? Did you see the new John G line?

[B]

No.

[A]

They have an RD line out that's great for racing. I'm actually going to pull it up. I linked to it it. Look at this new. Actually I love the bras. And they released a new bra. This is the Pinnacle RD ultra bra. Look at her putting that soft flask in the back of the bra.

[B]

In the back of the bra.

[A]

Yeah. I just got this bra. I'm so excited for it.

[B]

Whoa. That's fantastic.

[A]

Isn't that cool? It's a great race specific bra. It's awesome.

[B]

Yeah. And I'm just absolutely loving the Johnless, the John G Atlas pant and the multi short. The multi short is so good. I can't wait till they release their new shorts that are going to be really cool.

[A]

Okay. Also check out, they have a new. They have some really cool. So if you go to new arrivals, they have some cool, cool stuff. Look at the. The sun chaser long sleeve. It's an SPF 50 long sleeve.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Really cool.

[B]

That's so cool. Yeah. So go to Johnny we get messages all the time about people absolutely loving it. It's the best stuff.

[A]

We love their stuff. Basically all I wear to run in these days.

[B]

Yeah. And sign up for John G Collective and tell me sent you if you want. But you don't have to. Basically whatever. We trust John G. We love John G is the best. All right, on to listener corner. I have two of them here.

[A]

Oh, I didn't see two.

[B]

Yeah, I'm gonna go with the first one. One or a second one? Study title Effect of listening to the Ultimate Swap playlist for the duration of an ultra.

[A]

That's a good study title.

[B]

This is Our Spotify playlist. 21 hours.

[A]

Do you approve of that title? We had a lot of talks about study titles today. I approve of that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It feels reasonable.

[B]

Reasonable. Um, outcome felt gangster. AF for the duration of the race. 4th place, female. Yahoo.

[A]

Woo hoo. That's exciting.

[B]

Control group didn't know they were part of the study. Didn't have as cool of a playlist. Likely had a worse experience. Periods. Flaws in my study. Question mark. Barely. Your playlist works. Thank you.

[A]

That's exciting.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

This is a study. I have few limitations on this study. I love that playlist.

[B]

So check out the Ultimate Swap playlist. You know, free to everybody. It's 21 hours. I've only listened to that recently. I need to start adding to it

[A]

because I think actually let's just make a new playlist.

[B]

No, I feel like, oh, I guess that could work.

[A]

I feel like it's fun to have like a four hour playlist if you're gonna go for like a 50k race or something.

[B]

No, but the 21 hours. Perfect. Because you never know what you're gonna get.

[A]

I know, but then if you have four hours, it's like really curated.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then it just like gets lost in the 21 hour playlist.

[B]

What I'd love to rather do is prune the Ultimate Swap playlist over time because there are songs on there that I just like, fuck this song. And I don't know why.

[A]

I feel like if you have that experience, you should probably take the song off.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Is there one in specific?

[B]

Yes, but I don't want to. I don't want to put someone on blast here.

[A]

I mean, it's a song.

[B]

Well, no, maybe. Maybe this is a sign that I'm

[A]

a sad boy right now.

[B]

So specifically, there's Lizzo on and for some reason Lizzo resonates with me less now than she used to. To. Especially the song special.

[A]

Oh yeah.

[B]

So Special is a very sweet song. And I'm like, I want to hear a song. Wait, what was my Strava title yesterday for the Noah Kahan lyric? Need to find this. So, you know Special by Lizzo is a song that's like, you're special. Sorry I didn't do my correct breathing technique there before.

[A]

Before singing. It was. It was still good and you went for it. That's what matters.

[B]

And the know it lyric is. And I'm finally aware of how shitty and unfair it was to stare ahead like everything was fine. That's more my vibe than my music. No, not. Not actually, but yeah. So I'm thinking more I prune the Ultimate Swap playlist and add to it than create a bunch of new playlists over time. Because Ultimate Swap playlist is the product of, like, eight or 10 playlists. So what do you think of that?

[A]

I think we should create another eight or 10 playlists and then make another Swap ultimate playlist in time. By the time we're like, 45.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Do like, one playlist a year. That's four hours, and then combine them all soon.

[B]

Oh, Megan, I'm fading away.

[A]

Yeah, maybe I'll do that.

[B]

Maybe I'll do. Yes. You've never made one of these playlists on your own.

[A]

Well, we do it together. It's like a compilation.

[B]

I know, but usually it starts with me, and then you add to it. You should make one and then I'll add to it.

[A]

You know what? I'll do that this week.

[B]

Oh, shit.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I'm releasing on Patreon first. That's what you're gonna get. You're gonna. Megan playlist. Can you imagine how much better this is gonna be than my playlists?

[A]

The pressure is on.

[B]

Oh, my gosh. I can't wait.

[A]

Is it gonna have sad boy music on?

[B]

There are gonna be so many men with acoustic guitars telling me about their childhood.

[A]

That is not true.

[B]

They're gonna tell me about. About really, like, honestly, somewhat problematic relationships with women that they can no longer date.

[A]

That's country music. That's not sad boy music.

[B]

I don't know, Megan. There's similar vibes sometimes. Yeah, I'm excited. This is actually really cool.

[A]

I'm excited we're gonna do. I'm actually gonna do it, like, right after this podcast.

[B]

Clear your throat taints everybody.

[A]

It's coming. It's coming. I'll put my throat taint out in the world. This is the ultimate form of expression. We have a lot of fun singing together.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I mean, we're terrible singers. We never should do that.

[B]

You have a beautiful voice. You actually do.

[A]

We've been. We've been watching a lot of live music, like, up in the mountains and Ned, there's a lot of live bands perform, and I just, like. I love all of them for some reason.

[B]

Like, you have an incredible voice. I. I do not. And it's pretty clear if you had vocal lessons, you'd be a wonderful song.

[A]

Okay, well, the ship has sailed on vocal lessons. I feel like that's a thing that you get when you're like, six.

[B]

Why?

[A]

I don't know. I mean, also, like, you know, am I gonna sing? I have a hard enough time speaking. Do you think I'm gonna sing in public?

[B]

Well, it reminds me of this Instagram reel I was served of two people singing, and it's like Christian rock. It's. I mean, I appreciate it. I've actually had the song stuck in my head, but. Comments? The comments are awesome. And, like, this was terrible. And then you started singing.

[A]

That would be us. We'd be good at that.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. That's what we could do.

[A]

Oh, that'd be so fun. Fun. Like bad singing influencers of, like, bad.

[B]

But, like, enthusiastic, but, like, so into it, but zero self awareness.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Ready?

[A]

I mean, perfect.

[B]

All right. The last thing is my Instagram reel this week. I want to film with you, if it's okay.

[A]

Oh, I'm excited.

[B]

It's the Natasha Benningfield reel.

[A]

Yes. Okay. Okay. Should we just leave it there?

[B]

Should we leave it there? Yes, yes. Wait to see.

[A]

I'm excited. I'm excited.

[B]

This is going to make you cringe out of your fucking skin. I can't wait.

[A]

I mean, if they got this far in the podcast, they've already cringed out their skin.

[B]

True. Yeah.

[A]

True, true. I love you. This is fun.

[B]

Can you put one of those eye things on your t. No, no, no.

[A]

That sounds like it's gonna be real bad. I don't know. I feel like that's explicitly included. I feel like every skincare product, they're like. But do not put this down there.

[B]

Think about the logical endpoint of, you know, trying to put something on your face. Skin. So the reason you're putting on your

[A]

face, people see it tightening.

[B]

Yeah, but people say see it.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Yeah, but so the point being, it is an as much. I mean, I understand. You're beautiful. You don't need to contain. And that's my point. Like, that's why I didn't like these things, because I'm like, you're beautiful. You don't need to mess with anything. But what about the parts of you that people can't see? So, like, if it was truly just intrinsic, we'd be putting it on our

[A]

t. We would not, because it would burn like hell.

[B]

And that's the conclusion of the story. I accept burning, actually. Maybe my eczema is going to be gone.

[A]

Head and shoulders down there and see what happens.

[B]

Clear date in your fucking life. We love you all. Oh, no.